World Literature#2/ The Lady and the Dog/ Morality of Love

The Morality of Love

           Two points constitute the significance that short story “Lady and the Dog” bears. Sergeyeyna’s husband is not directly described as a villain, and the story is written from the perspective of the two adulteresses.

          Of course, this is not the first story in human history that deals with the theme of adultery. The Bible has stories of adultery, whether mistaken or unintentional. Shakespeare deals with adultery in his plays and poems. However, there are significant differences that set this story apart from any other of these stories. Chekhov’s characters are serious; they live in real world where adultery is considered as a sin a crime, while Shakespeare’s characters in comedies live in fantasy world where one or two day’s bed switch was considered as the most humorous thing at that time. Also, the characters adulterate in intention; they do not mistakenly sleep together as Noah or Shakespearean characters would do in deceivable situations. Most importantly, the husband of Sergeyeyna is not vilified although the protagonists are willing to justify and enjoy their espionage.

          The discussion on Chekhov’s realism had been rampaging here and there, but what seems to be more important is the significance of the realism, not whether the story is a realistic one or not. The characters in Chekhov’s “The Lady and the Dog” are not gods and goddesses in Greek Myth. They do not have superhuman powers or classical atmosphere that makes adultery somehow justified and accepted as Zeus would. Instead, the affair goes on in a very real place—Yalta—where we can find the city on a map. The description is real: the dog eats the bone, the grass is mowed, and the adulterers’ wife and husband are real. It is as if they are people who could be existent any minute during the late 19^th century.

            Nonetheless, there is less hostility towards the couple to be found in this story. This couple intentionally engages into immorality, yet they enjoy the umbrella held by Chekhov to protect themselves from moral criticism. Not only are those, the couple’s counterparts, the faithful wife and husband not depicted as villains. Of course, the protagonists had some dissatisfaction with their spouses. However, the level of dissatisfaction is very low: calling her husband a “flunkey” is not much of a slander, while characterizing one’s wife as “boring” is something universal. They are not villains. The “flunkey” husband even lets his wife freely travel to Yalta and to Moscow whenever she wants to.

             Then what is the significance of these characterizations done by Chekhov? Why are the characters depicted as engaging in an intentional and unreasonable adultery? Do they have a reason to do so?

The striking significance is that there is no such grand reason, there is no such justification. Things we call “immorality” can be an unfair denomination of what are just consequences of random emotions. In the past, loving one another than the wife was considered a sin. There had to be a justification that either the spouses were evil or it was unintentional. However, as restrictions go loose, there is no such need. What, should love be restricted in the upcoming 20^th century? 

World Literature #1/ The Student/ Night after the Crucifixion

Night after the Crucifixion

It has been agreed that Anton Chekhov’s The Student is a realist short story, depicting the everyday life of Russians. I think differently. The constant Biblical allusions dictate that the subtext beneath the seemingly realist story endows much meaning to the story. In order to trace the clues that Chekhov laid for the readers to follow, one should notice the straightforwardly spoken generalization in the conclusion of the story.

Now the student was thinking about Vasilisa: since she had shed tears all that had happened to Peter the night before the Crucifixion must have some relation to her. . . .

He looked round. The solitary light was still gleaming in the darkness and no figures could be seen near it now. The student thought again that if Vasilisa had shed tears, and her daughter had been troubled, it was evident that what he had just been telling them about, which had happened nineteen centuries ago, had a relation to the present -- to both women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all people. The old woman had wept, not because he could tell the story touchingly, but because Peter was near to her, because her whole being was interested in what was passing in Peter's soul.

The excerpt above gives two useful guides in interpreting this short story. (1) It explicitly suggests that the story of Vasilisa and her daughter bears a relationship with the Twelve Gospels (referred to as “which had happened nineteen centuries ago” in the excerpt above). (2) The concept of past and present had played an important role in the story. Therefore, in this essay, I will show (1) how related the two stories are and (2) what the timeline linked from past and present foreshadows future events.

The description of timeline in the story is something to note. The narrator, Ivan Velikopolky, conjectures that during “the days of Rurik” and “in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter,” there would have been “same desperate poverty and hunger” as it is right now. He compares such status to the atmosphere with “cold penetrating wind” and “needles of ice.” However, he states that in a closer past (“[a]t first”), “the weather was fine and still,” there even was a “gay, resounding note in the spring air.” To sum up, “same darkness, the same feeling of oppression” has been existent for a very long time, but with a small aberration in the distant past.

Another notion to take in regard is that the time setting in the story is Good Friday, when “nothing has[d] been cooked.” Good Friday is a Christian holiday that commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus. In memoir of his sacrifice, Christians fast during the day Christ had been in pain. For a long time, the Jews had been under foreign oppression until Jesus has come to enlighten them and lessen their burdens. However, on Good Friday, he was caught by Roman and dissident rabies and later crucified. The atmosphere changing from the super pastàdistant pastà present in the story pretty much matches with the Bible.

But of course, this coinciding change of atmosphere is not sufficient enough to show a link between the short story and the biblical tale. Nonetheless, the concatenation of events and their settings in The Student are identical with that in the Gospels.

The characteristics of Vasilisa and her daughter Lukerya links to the tale of Peter and Jesus. When Jesus was dragged off by the Jewish dissidents, Peter warmed himself by the fire after having slept. Similarly, Vasilisa stands by “the fire” and has spent time “with the gentry” and could express “herself in refinement” while Lukerya was “beaten by her husband” as a village peasant. The expression that Lukerya was “beaten” is noteworthy. Chekhov uses the same word (“beat”) when describing the ordeal Jesus had to go through, hence “beat Him” and “…He was beaten.” Also, it is suggestive that Vasilisa and Lukerya had “just had supper” by the time Velikopolsky arrives to the campfire. When he tells the tale that Peter wept bitterly after the crow crowed, Vasilisa starts making “big tears” flow “freely down her cheeks.”

By now, it is reasonable to assume that Lukerya is being compared to Jesus while Vasilisa to Peter. However, there is one doubt that lingers in the story; Velikopolsky describes Lukerya as “a little pock-marked woman with a stupid-looking face.” Not only that, Peter, though finding meaning of life, does not “feel as though Easter would be the day after to-morrow.” It is absurd that Peter is joyful when the widows are either weeping or in “enduring intense pain.” The sudden lesson at the end of the story hints that there might be a deviation from the original ending in the Gospel, resurrection.

American Literature#12/ Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story/ Lover as an Offensive Intruder

Lover as an Offensive Intruder

             We see SNS flooding with confessions of loneliness. We constantly blame the cut-throat competition, “the system”, “something out there” (whatever “something out there is) to have driven people inhumane and incredulous. In all, we find the cause of their aloofness from the other, longing for a perfect relationship with an ideal man/ woman.

             But at the same time, we are extremely offended when someone intrudes into “our” sense of sphere. A nation-wide example would be xenophobia prevalent in any country, multi-ethnical or homogeneous. On a smaller scale, it would be increasing inclusiveness of sexual harassment. In the status quo, European Union now has leaders with populist and xenophobic support, while modern democracies are filled with extremely sensitive women. Republic of Korea even passed a bill to illegalize “perverted staring” by including it in legal scope of sexual harassment.

             These conflicting expectations towards an ideal life bear too much burden for our ideal, imaginary partners. So our ideal friend/ companion should be someone who is trustworthy enough so that we can let him of her discover our deepest, darkest side, but at the same time be respectful towards our sphere. Is this possible? Is the concurrence of complete affection and mutual independence plausible? If not, a truthful relationship would necessitate significant alteration in the existence or characteristics of the individuals involved in it.

             “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story” is a depiction of modern individuals exerting each other at the verge of true relationship, thus alienating themselves from the others and regressing to autistic attitudes. This story answers the question above, if a true relationship solely with happiness but not pain and conflict would ever be possible. The answer from the story reads no, and it can be observed by dividing the beings we confront into three parties.

             The simplest dividing line of the beings we face would be between humans and objects. Objects are obviously not alive, and especially enable themselves to be used in any general contexts. This phenomenon is even more apparent nowadays. Because the objects, or to be more precise, products, are mass-produced and mass-consumed, there is no distinctiveness in the objects we use. It can be used by anyone other than myself, thus showing the fact that the relationship between the object and I is typical and superficial.

             Another characteristic inherent in objects is that the pursuit by jouissance is one-directional in its relationship with the user. The object lacks the ability to go for its jouissance, it is sexually castrated being. The user, in contrast, is the only one who takes advantage of the object and enjoys an autistic orgasm. In the sense that the user who solely resorts to such enjoyment fails to make a mature relationship with other individuals indicate that the user is inherently fetishistic and obsessed with childish preference that only satisfies low dimensional needs.

             In “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” there are yuppies, professional and young, who “most…..were divorced.” They have no place to go except for the expensive bars and “white-washed apartments.” They eat “evening meals in radar ranges” while “TV chuckles quietly.” All of these commercial products bear no special meaning to the users. Not only that, the yuppies go through this everlasting circulation of banality, failing to meet anything but these objects and fellow coworkers, bearing a strong similarity,

             The confrontation between coworkers, or people of similar social status and identical dilemmas might function as a defense against the argument that the yuppies in “Sarah Cole” are not autistic or fetishistic. They might not be fetishistic in such sense, but they are autistic and narcissistic. When a person loves the other that bears a similar characteristic as him, and feels affectionate for the similarity he finds in the other, the relationship is more of self-love than true love of others. If a person finds comfort in the similarity, then what significance does the similar other possess? How is it different from finding comfort of one being himself?

             Here is the place when the concept of neighbor kicks in. Loving oneself is never difficult, but loving one another is extremely challenging. Such is the reason why Freud addresses the difficulty to “love thy neighbor” (Leviticus 19:18) in his book Civilization and its Discontents. A neighbor is inherently a being that is outside the rule of one’s family. This is not significant to a subject, but when this neighbor with an inherent difference lives close, the existence of the neighbor becomes menacing. In short, a neighbor is a complete other that has little similarity and is unavoidable.

             There is only one neighbor that the protagonist meets in “Sarah Cole.” Protagonist Ronald meets Sarah Cole and engages into an intact relationship. Nonetheless, the effort that Ronald puts is to extract Sarah from her life and place her in his context. He tries to “draw her forward from the context of her life and place her, as if she were an object, into the context of mine.” This is more of an action of self-defense than of aggression. Because Ronald’s relationships were restricted to materials and people similar to him, he had to treat her as an object, so that he could maintain who he was. This is shown when Ronald rejects to engage in sexual intercourse in Sarah Cole’s house but does in his house. Before Sarah Cole, all sexual actions were either materialism or masturbation (for he has sex with people similar to him), while that with Sarah Cole necessitated the interchange of Sarah Cole into an object of his context of life, so that he could comfortably enjoy his childish sense of jouissance.

             However, Ronald’s effort to capture Sarah Cole into his context fails. Sarah Cole’s presence forces him to change his lifestyle and attitude towards life, thus change himself. He is forced to visit parties that he would not if alone, meet people that he dare would not if alone. After the materialization of Sarah Cole fails, Ronald avoids her, such as not answering her phone calls or letting it ring five or six times before he picks it up. Although he wanted a deep relationship from the beginning of the story, and admits himself as being “shallow,” he refuses to engage in such, which makes the title of the story as not a true love story, but only “a type of love story.”

American Literature#11/ Fish Cheeks/ Hypocritical Cultural-relativism

Hypocritical Cultural-relativism in “Fish Cheek”

             We live in a society that upholds diversity and cultural-relativism on one hand and “political correctness” on another. The term “political correctness” consists of respect towards minority, and moral that treats every groups and individuals with egalitarian standards. In general, it is used to describe an attitude that respects every others’ opinions.

             Because respect towards other’s opinion has become the dominating hegemony, we always respect others’ opinions—at least outwardly. Many whites detest the “Japs”, “Chin-chins” and etcetera, but this idea rarely appears in the public sphere. Hence the new racial slur such as “Asians do math,” many hold discriminatory prejudice that trifle minorities, but such discourse is never done in a public discourse, where the minorities could fight back. Such backbiting occurs in a private level where only people with similar thoughts share what they think, and solidify their antagonism. The reason for this twofold phenomenon would be concurrence of hatred towards outsiders and WASP arrogance to maintain the “politically-correct” behavior.

             William Bennett was gravely criticized when he stated in his call-in show: “But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” This might seem as a prominent example of proud American civic consciousness. However, I doubt whether the criticism was directed at the content of the statement or the context of the statement. If Bennett had stated this in a dinner table with conservatives, would he have been criticized so much? Many whites would actually agree to the statement, but also agree that it was not “politically correct”, content otherwise.

             Of course, I don’t mean to say that all racial slurs and hate speech should be out in the open and proudly bellowed—they are all repulsive. But what I wish to stress is that pretending to be “politically correct” when they are morally not is even more disgusting. People in mainstream maintain their imperialistic, colonialist behavior behind their mask of tolerance. If such behavior is existent in the public sphere, it can be attacked and overcome, but because it lurks in the private sphere, it has become stronger and more rooted.

             In such sense, Amy Tan’s work “Fish Cheeks” is an exemplar of how well-masked colonialism can impress even those who are suppressed. This story seems to follow a stereotypical college-essay fairytale; there is a personal yet sympathizing experience nicely wrapped by concluding axiom. Hence what the narrator’s mother says at the end of the story: “But inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame.” This is an ideal lesson for growing children of a culturally-relativistic era. But is it really?

             This extremely short narrative invests most of its 500 words into a foul description of Chinese food culture and the narrator’s shame about it. The description is done from Westerner’s perspective: “slimy rock cod with bulging eyes”, “[t]ofu, which looked like stacked wedges of robbery white sponges,” “squid…..resembled bicycle tires,” “my father……belched loudly.” In any westernized reader’s perspective, it is pretty repulsive. Disgust resulting from such description cannot be all covered up instantaneously by a short, hasty “words of wisdom.”

             Amy Tan’s story is more of a situational irony than an educational children’s story, even if not intended. No matter what Amy Tan felt after the Christmas Eve visit, the minister’s family (including Amy Tan’s crush) would leave disgusted by Chinese food culture. Despite the reputation as a post-colonial story “Fish Cheek” has, does the viewpoint of Westerners in the story ever change? Or does the readers’ perspective change? Hardly. Even if it does, it is only a superficial level of “The Chinese have some strange culture, and I don’t understand why the fuck they eat such disgusting stuff, but I’ll respect them anyway, because I am a proud, intellectual, politically correct American citizen.”

             The intention to justify assimilation or uphold respect towards others’ cultures (cultural-relativism) might have been kind, or to say, “politically correct.” But the actual function it does is to form a superficial level of respect, more of avoidance, to an unfamiliar culture. In a Zizekian sense, the Westerners are further alienating the Chinese by showing a gesture of acceptance. The Chinese fail to enter the Western pool of culture as a respectful, mature culture but as weird, queer lifestyle. Of course, Amy Tan’s story is politically correct, but the actual meaning that it delivers isn’t. The respect in Amy Tan’s story reflects more Western arrogance (“We, the civilized, accept your barbarism”) than true alienation that outsiders face.



Comments:

Lee Hyunseok: Interesting reflection upon individual plus society. But along the flow or your points, I wonder that although problematic assertions relating to races do now always reflect public but only some people in dominant position. Isn't it so dangerous since those are often influential and power-speaking? 

Han Jonghyun: A very impressive start. I was very surprised by how you have started writing this reflection relating to the general society. However, some ideas you have mentioned seem pretty vague that I cannot fully understand what you are saying. Furthermore, I want to question you that Amy Tan's Fish Cheek does not represent the westerner's view of the Chinese food culture, but rather Amy Tan's personal opinions. I believe that in this "society that upholds diversity and multi-cultralism", the westerners are not so hostile.

American Literature#10/ The Most Beautiful Woman in Town/ Truthful Ugliness

AmeLit Prompt: The following short story "The Most Beautiful Woman in Town" is an example of not only a Beat Generation writer but of the Confessional Period in American Literature. In a well-organized essay, reflect on what the author is confessing, and how the author's style affects the impact of his confession. Use the reverse of the page if necessary.

The word “confession” contains more meaning than simply saying the truth. Usually, it is more about the silenced truth, about uncomfortable subjects that people choose not to tell. So when it is stated that Charles Bukowski’s “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town” is a confessional literature, there must be identification on what the uncomfortably confessed truth is, and how it is portrayed.

The general characteristics of the protagonist of “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town” indicate every traits of rural lowlife. He is unemployed, uneducated and most of all impassionate. There is no attempt made to elevate his social status, and he is not ashamed of it. An average man would castigate the protagonist for being a scum, but in a closer view, the “broken” lifestyle of the protagonist is much reasonable compared to that of the average men. What meaning is there in diligence, social respect and admired jobs, when everyone dies anyway? At the end of the day, what is left is “Old ladies in their 70's and 80's sat on the benches and discussed selling real estate left behind by husbands long ago killed by the pace and stupidity.”

But then is the protagonist happy? If the protagonist is contented after defying all of social norms, it would not be praised as much. The true despair of absurd is that after realizing the voidness of the happiness from norms, one is hardly able to find its substitute, or true happiness. The confession of Bukowski is that even after our personal enlightenment, much bigger meaninglessness elapses. Bukowski’s despair echoes in the line “Nothing. I can’t get on to anything. No interest.” when the protagonist is asked “What are you doing?”

Bukowski confesses his powerlessness toward the violence of the void, broken world through the protagonist’s actions. It is evident that the protagonist loved Cass, nonetheless, he does not show an immediate reaction to her death. When the bartender tells him that Cass had “cut her throat”, the protagonist simply responds, “I see. Give me another drink.” A more appropriate reaction blurts out after some time when he screams at a honking car, which has nothing to do with the death of his lover. The protagonist’s actions depict everyday lives being torn apart by the depression that the broken society provides. Despite the despair that resides, there is nothing that an individual could do against it. Bukowski illustrates this impotency by ending his story “The night kept coming and there was nothing I could do.”

Absurd and powerlessness against it are both depressing ideas. Eloquent, Shakespeare-like language would not fit illustrating or confessing of such topics. Because the character and the writer are both broken individuals living in broken worlds, their language must be broken as well. Bukowski frequently uses obscene language. These languages’ inappropriateness accurately depicts the daily lives, mismatched and distorted. Illustrating an ugly world with beautiful words and pretending as if it is a beautiful is hypocrisy. 

American Literature#9/ The Conversion of the Jews/ Only a God can Save Us

Only a God can Save Us

             What is god? Before reflecting on the Sunday school rhetoric, let us explore its significance upon the human world. A being that does neither reside nor influence the Real world is world-less (Weltlosigkeit), therefore meaningless. Even if there is a god, and it influences us, it must be something real, something that resides with us, maybe in the literal sense as well. Heidegger seems to agree to this notion. Heidegger requires the divine being to be an individual being functioning as a catalyst of the community. In short, Heidegger’s god is a previously human, currently god being who summons inevitable change in essence of its world. In this essay, I will link Heidegger’s notion of manly god to the significance that the protagonist of The Conversion of the Jews Ozzie holds.

             Heidegger’s god is not divine from birth. Prior or concurring to the violence that the creator pounds on the common, there must be a self-destruction made by the god. Before or along with the transformation in essence of the community, he who creates must deny himself as a banal human being and accept the newly born self. Such allusion can be easily found in other sources such as the film Fight Club, where the protagonist goes through an-inner fight with himself and then starts to destruct the social structure. In Sophocles’ play, Antigone, Antigone had to kill herself to accentuate Creon’s tyranny and put impact on the polis.

             The same allusion is found in The Conversion of the Jews with a tone-down description. Ozzie deliberately ducks Rabbi Binder’s hand, causing “the palm caught him squarely on the nose.” Then Ozzie cries “You bastard, You bastard” at Rabbi Binder. Three facts are observable from this very short sequence of events. First is that it was actually Ozzie who initiated the bodily harm, the blow on his nose was unnecessary and unintended. Second, there was a significant trace of the bodily harm, which is the blood from the nose. Third is that Ozzie practically denies his former position as a student within the rule and the discourse of the synagogue. He blatantly rejects the authority of teacher, religious leader and adult all at once. This denial is extremely significant, for the very part of the story shows Ozzie having trouble in accepting the new self—whatever it maybe, not a normal student, obedient juvenile—by saying “Can this be me?......Is it me? Is it me Me ME ME ME! It has to be me—but is it?” This is a very typical reaction from a human who is turning from a common to a divine or heroic.

             But even before such rite of passage, Ozzie already shows signs of an outlier. His name bears a special meaning, which has an origin as “divine power.” Not only that, he fits the description of the violent, the divine by Heidegger in Introduction to Metaphysics. In the Introduction of Metaphysics, the violent creator is described as one who shouts out loud in the silenced sphere with creative insight. Ozzie is the one in the story who raises uncomfortable questions and threatens the set authority. His friends indicate him as “a real one” for opening his “mouth in the first place.” Immaculate Conception and status of Christ in Jewish theology are both disturbing topics to discuss, especially when it is from an innocent child. Ozzie is the only one in class who raises such questions and demands for an answer.

             The decisive trait of Ozzie that qualifies him as a divine being of his community is what he does at the end of the short story. According to Contributions to Philosophy, a god is a divine catalyst who initiates a culturally transformational phenomenon and forces others to perceive its divine state. In the very beginning part of the story, A Jewish student identifies the Jewish by stating “They believe in Jesus Christ, that he’s God.” The essence, or the endowed meaning of the Jewish is the trait of not believing in Jesus Christ, and that he was not born by Immaculate Conception. Then at the end of the story, Ozzie forces everyone to admit that God “can make a child without intercourse” and make them say that “they believed in Jesus Christ.” This is clearly destruction in the essence of a community, qualifying Ozzie as a cultural catalyst.

             Not only that, Ozzie shows a significant influence over the action of the mass. Everyone obeys when he commands: “Everybody kneel” This alludes to “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (NIV, John 10:27) Ozzie’s mother call Ozzie “A martyr I have”, for he is no longer student Ozzie, but a representation of a large enough entity of students, who are “his people”. This is shown by Rabbi Binder’s transe-like statement “He’s doing it for them. He won’t listen to me. It’s them.” It is not very ambiguous of what “It” in the statement is signifying; it cannot be the students, and it must be Ozzie. Ozzie is the incarnation of the group, not an individual, when he stood high. Ozzie proves himself as a divine being, and leads his people to approve it. 

American Literature#8/ The Lottery/ The Outsider Within

The Outsider Within

        It may seem shocking that there is a great deviation between the companionship towards fellowmen and outsiders. Would it not be difficult for an average, morally-consistent individual to kill a child during his working hours, return home and sing a lullaby to his own child? How absurd is it, UN “peace-keeping” force gun down rogue state soldiers because the soldiers were, uh, rogue. This deviation is more apparent when considering the war crime trials of Nazi officers. The officer’s family and neighbors testified that the officers (after killing hundreds of Jews daily) came back home every night with small toys for their children. How can the sense of compassion and companionship go along with sense of ostracism and hostility?

             Although seemingly ironical, such deviation is what maintains our “civilized, caring” society. A more accurate question would be: How could there be companionship when there is no fear, no outsider and no villain? The concepts of union and companionship within our societies have necessitated the concept of ostracism. Because there cannot be “us” without “them”, we had to imagine and therefore create the presence of the absolute other, the neighbor, the outsider and the stranger. During the Middle age it was the nomads, these days it is the foreigners, immigrants and so called human-rights-violating rogue states.

             It is us who have created our arch-enemies to sustain our companionship and sense of unity. Those villains are not congenitally evil. The power of endowing signification is the listeners’. We endow them the identity of villains, and put ardent efforts to fight against them. This is the point where Jackson’s blazing insight in “The Lottery” comes in. We’re not fighting against a Real-enemy lurking outside the castle walls. Unless there is an entity that threatens us within the walls, in the Real, inside our lives, the enemy is world-less (Weltlosigkeit), and therefore meaningless.

             Then who are we exactly fighting against, and what does Shirley Jackson have to say about it? There is a need for a Lacanian analysis in answering this question. Let’s reflect it on our lives. On the Real, we have our civilized lives: bustling streets full of businessmen, rush-hour traffic, well-being organic yogurt cups—just name anything around you. We don’t have Muslim terrorists raiding our subways, Kim Jong-Il leading a socialist march or illegal immigrants plundering Manhattan apartments.

             On the Symbolic, there are newspapers, broadcast stations (not to mention FOX) that employ stereotypical patriotic rhetoric that keeps citizens in constant fear. Yes, fear is what sustains the violent essence of the “terrorist” existence. Without it, there is no room for the imaginary hostility to exist. In a world-less world with no meaning, no ideology to fight against or fight for, fear is the only motivation that we have to create companionship and feel threat. As Heidegger points out, the languages of patriotism rhetoric are the “house of being” for the existence of rogue states, terrorists and illegal immigrants. The rhetoric creates enemies, the enemy creates fear, and fear makes companionship. Actually, fear is the only motivation we have to move our fat ass out of the couch and care for the community, for there is no ideology to protect these days.

             The observation of the Imaginary answers the question raised: “Who are we actually fighting against?” If we’re fighting against the images created by newspapers and broadcasts, are we fighting nothing? We are fighting the images of our utmost fear; we are fighting against ourselves. Jackson’s human sacrifice in the Lottery sharply picks on this notion that we are fighting the hostile-self, or “the Outsider within.” The villagers stone a woman who was definitely an insider just a few minutes before the ceremony.

             But of course, there is always a room for refutation. There are two points of contention. First is that the time “The Lottery” was published was when Cold War, the war of ideologies, was present. Would not the analysis of the need for fear become unnecessary? Second is that the woman was initially part of the group, and that the group was definitely aware of it.

             The Cold War. I assume that most Americans hated communists during the late 40’s and 50’s. But was there any reason we hated communism in particular. How many veterans knew what communism meant? How many Americans were able to criticize communism based on logical and political analysis? Communism itself is not important; it is just a common us-them boundary that creates fear. How can ideology to fight against exist when there is no sign of a counterpart in daily lives? War and the decadent lives of 50’s were separated from each other. For other wars, the notion on the need for unconditional hostility might not work, but this one does.

             The second point of refutation raises a more intricate question. Surely, the townsmen know that the woman is victimized for no particular reason. They saw the process, yet they still respect the randomness of the ritual. Creation of us-them boundary seems to be challenging in such a situation. But that is exactly what we are doing in the status quo. We already know that Israel is an illegal occupation on Palestinian land. We already know that a vast majority of Israelis are atheists. And we still listen to their claim based on the Holy Bible. We all are very aware of the mysterious absence of bio-chemical weapons in Iraq. Nonetheless we keep on the global warfare. Maybe there are writers who write, criticize and satisfy themselves. We all go on knowingly. We already know that much of these us-them boundaries are mirages, by we go on nonetheless. This is another support for Jackson’s insight in “the Lottery”.

*Many points made during the passage are related to Slavoj Zizek's Violence

Comments

Park Jungmin: I definitely agree with you on the point that we're basically trying to create the absolute villains or enemies to feel security and united. It's like the society in Animal Farm. Even right now, government/ media of the countries around the world are creating rumors, enemies that we must fight against. I actually thought of this phenomenon similar to what happens in "the Lottery". But now I wonder if there is any difference because the enemy for the sake of security and the sacrificed for the sake of pleasure. They seem to be the same thing, but it's still frustrating to find any connections between them. Overall I sincerely agree what you have written here. 

Lee Hyejoon: Don't you think it is queer that we humans have always needed the presence of "them". As far as I know, living things struggle to preserve their own species. Some people say that it is the ultimate reason exist, to extend their lives through their off-springs. Why would people develop a sense of hatred and rivalry within themselves? That doesn't seem to be beneficial for the survival of our species. I also believe that cruelty is human nature but now can the desire for the species' survival and desire for others' pain coexist?

Lee Hyunseok: Great use of language, philosophical analysis with an individual sense and opinion. Maybe difficult to interpret.